Team Parenting™

The introduction of FCA’s Team Parenting™ model of fostering has been one of the most influential changes to the shape of UK foster care.

The success of Team Parenting™, in delivering positive outcomes for even the most difficult to place looked after children and young people, has achieved its highly acclaimed reputation with Local Authorities and Health Trusts throughout the UK.

How Team Parenting™ works

The Team Parenting™ model draws together a range of qualified professionals from different fields to form a multi-disciplinary team, aimed at addressing the child or young person’s therapeutic needs. An assigned therapist plays a pivotal role in coordinating a joint effort by this team.

A Team Parenting™ meeting may be held to discuss a child or young person’s needs prior to/at the commencement of a placement.

The Team Parenting™ team

The Team Parenting™ team may consist of:

Foster carer
Therapist
FCA Social Workers
Children and Young People Support Service Workers (CYPSS)
Health Professionals
Education Liaison Officer (ELO)
Local Authority Social Workers
Local office staff
Life Story Workers
Other foster children
Birth Family (and any significant others)

At FCA, our experience has proved that the smallest specialist intervention from one of these professional support services can make all the difference to a placement.

The role of the fostering family in Team Parenting™

FCA foster carers have the vital role as ‘agents of change’. By this, we mean that the fostering family itself has an extended responsibility to deliver the therapeutic teachings directly to the looked after child or young person.

Team Parenting™ support services are not intended to replace foster carer’s responsibilities; they extend and enhance them.

Therapeutic Fostering

Team Parenting™ is often referred to as Therapeutic Fostering. This explains the joint approach to creating a therapeutic environment for the child or young person within their own family environment.

By addressing a child or young person’s feeling or anxieties, Team Parenting™ professionals work hard to ensure that issues from the past are not transferred to the detriment of a child or young person’s future placements. And with this in mind, a Team Parenting™ placement is not just to benefit the stability of a placement; it increases the level of attachment between the child or young person and their carer.

Learn about Specialist Team Parenting™Fostering Placements

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